BBC News with Fiona MacDonald.

The former butler to Pope Benedict has been convicted of the theft of

confidential

papers from pontiff's private department. The Vatican City court sentenced Paolo Gabriele to 18 months imprisonment">imprisonment having taken into account that he had no previous convictions. Mr. Gabriele has been detained at his residence in Vatican City. As David Willey reports.

He is now technically under house arrest. And for the moment it looks as though he's going to serve his sentence in that shape. In other words, there is no proper detention facilities inside the Vatican to

imprison

him. I think the Vatican is also a bit worried about the implications of handing him over to the Italian authorities to serve his time in an Italian jail because then he might be subjected to all sorts of pressures to reveal to outsiders, perhaps, sign a

lucrative

book contract with some publisher about what he knows about the Vatican.

Abu Hamza, the radical Muslim cleric who was

extradited

from Britain on Friday after a long legal battle has made his first court appearance in the United States. Mr Hamza is facing charges that include conspiring to set up a militant training camp in Oregon has not yet

entered a plea

. Four others who were extradited at the same time

pleaded not guilty

. Alastair Leithead reports.

Abu Hamza was appeared in court without his hook-shaped